Aphrodite at The British Museum, London

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Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. Her Roman counterpart is the goddess Venus. She is associated with the planet Venus. Multiple stories explain her origins, as with many ancient Greek deities. According to Hesiod's Theogony, she was born when Cronus cut off Uranus' genitals and threw them into the sea, emerging from the sea foam (aphros). Homer's Iliad describes her as Zeus' daughter with Dione. Plato (Symposium, 180e) categorizes these two origins as distinct entities: Aphrodite Ourania and Aphrodite Pandemos. Due to her stunning beauty, other gods feared that their rivalry for her would disrupt the peace among them, potentially leading to war, so Zeus married her to Hephaestus. Hephaestus was chosen because of his ugliness and deformity, making him an unlikely threat. Aphrodite had numerous lovers, including gods like Ares and men such as Anchises. She played a role in the Eros and Psyche legend and later became Adonis's lover and surrogate mother. Many lesser beings were said to be children of Aphrodite. Aphrodite is also known as Cytherea (Lady of Cythera) and Cypris (Lady of Cyprus), reflecting her association with the cult sites on the islands of Cythera and Cyprus, which claimed to be her birthplace. Myrtle, doves, sparrows, horses, and swans were considered sacred animals in her honor. The ancient Greeks identified her with the Ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor. Aphrodite had multiple names, such as Acidalia, Cytherea, and Cerigo, each used by a different local cult of the goddess in Greece. Despite minor differences in what these local cults believed the goddess demanded of them, the Greeks recognized all these names as referring to the single goddess Aphrodite. The Attic philosophers of the 4th century distinguished between a celestial Aphrodite (Aphrodite Urania) representing transcendent principles and a separate, "common" Aphrodite who was the goddess of the people (Aphrodite Pandemos).